Work stalls on disputed Mantuli resort inside Pemba forest reserve
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Construction of a planned luxury resort inside the Ngezi-Vumawimbi forest reserve on Pemba Island has stopped since a boundary wall went up, with Zanzibar's government and the developers yet to publish project details.
In March 2026, contractors built a wall along the edge of the Ngezi-Vumawimbi Forest Reserve on Pemba Island in Zanzibar, marking the boundary of what appears to be the site of the planned Mantuli luxury resort within the reserve.
According to sources Mongabay spoke to, no further work has taken place since the wall was completed in the first half of 2026. It stands in the far northwest of the island, between a former rubber plantation and land used by local communities for homes, fields of cassava and sweet potatoes, and burial sites. The reserve boundary lies just beyond the community land.
Ngezi-Vumawimbi covers about 1,500 hectares and is surrounded by 10 villages with a combined population of more than 20,000 people, according to Tanzania's 2022 census. Communities enter the reserve for spiritual practices and to collect firewood and wild fruit, and research has found that rural households across Pemba derive about a third of their annual income from forest resources.
In September 2025, conservationists and researchers published an open letter in the journal Science opposing the Mantuli project, saying it risked damaging one of East Africa's most important remaining tropical moist forest areas. Ecologist Tim Caro told Mongabay the development would affect almost a quarter of the reserve's tall, mature closed-canopy trees, including a stand of rare Intsia bijuga, while botanists warn of extinction risk for endemic orchids and at least three Dracaena species.
Neither the Zanzibari government nor the project's owners have published detailed information about Mantuli. Caro said several important ministries oppose downgrading the principal forest reserve, while others see an opportunity to generate tourist revenue.
Heavy machinery and vehicles previously stationed at a site inside the reserve have been removed over the past months, with only some cars remaining, according to people familiar with the situation. A South African architectural bureau contracted to design Mantuli has removed a page referring to the resort from its website, which now shows renderings of the same buildings labelled "location undisclosed".